Salad King is not gone forever. For that I’m thankful. The sight of debris and large construction fences around Yonge and Gould were ominous enough. Salad King’s website still shows their April 22nd update regarding their closure due to their building falling on the street. I wondered months ago whether the “reno” by the new street level corner tenant resulted in one less support. The reno seemed to create a longer 3 pane window. I could be mistaken but it’s obvious something was not right after the work was done and the new business moved in.

Flash forward to whatever transpired with the building post-reno and dangerous debris is falling on the street. Saddest, for me, is that one of my fave restaurants that has been forced to close until who knows when???!!!

Not about to go to Don Mills to check out Salad King’s upscale Linda location but mmm it’s tempting. Thankful that no one was injured but my fave Thai restaurant in Toronto is still a victim!

I’ve heard first hand about some wheelers and dealers in Toronto and their love of rock star nights on the town. Not to say that all patrons of Toronto’s fine venues are thieves and crooks, but not everyone can wine and dine themselves with $10,000+ diners and afford that lifestyle through legal means.

As a whole it is disturbing how tough on crime we appear to be but how soft things are for white collar criminals. Time will tell whether any justice will be served. Unfortunately crime knows not of a recession.

I know everyone has been just thrilled with all the post Olympic political action lately. It’s nearly as exciting as the record Winter Olympic frenzy. The Federal speech from the throne, a Federal budget and let’s not forget Ontario’s speech from the throne a few days ago. It has many armchair athletes turning to armchair politicians.

The latest heart stopping event. A press conference that Mayor Miller called yesterday. So press and citizens were all in a frenzy when Mayor Miller was about to announce “something”. The “let down”, it seems for most, is that the estimated surplus Toronto expected to post for 2009 was actually $100 million more than forecast. People are mad?! Really? During a recession, difficult (often questionable) service fees and labour unrest the city managed to post a bigger than expected surplus. Oh. Get this, they are willing charge (gouge) less for property taxes based on these surplus funds. How is this a bad thing? Oh, and Miller asked Ontario to keep its promise to fund the TTC. This is hardly something to really complain about.

Hey political cheerleaders out there. Miller’s reign has not been perfect but it is hardly as horrible as people cry about. Sorry to the whiners but you can’t exactly cry about getting this present. We are lucky to get it. Judging from the stink the Parliamentary Budget Officer is making about the Federal Government’s structural deficits and unsustainable budget we will have enough to cry about in a few years (months if another election is called). I hope the hot air spewing about is preparation for voters getting out of their armchairs and out to the ballot boxes. If not you can always sit back down and watch the opening of the Paralympics tomorrow.

Toronto's PFL stopped in at the Casbah in Hamilton Thursday. Oh, the carnage!

The Pillow Fight League only gets better. I missed #36 at the Mod Club and decided to make the trek to Hamilton to catch Fight #37.

This was the first match ever to be hosted in Hamilton and the PFL didn’t dissapoint. The Casbah turned out to be a perfect venue. Judging by screams and enthusiasm from the crowd some new fans were converted.

Don’t worry Hamilton has hijacked the PFL. The next Toronto match promises to be an exciting new chapter. (One that involves SATURDAY NIGHTS instead of weeknights!).

Just barely survived the worst of the holiday rush. As if traffic, malls and parking lots are not treacherous enough the other 364 days of the year!!! Perhaps more people should contemplate the 6 billion others on the planet we share.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand is an awesome photographer. Both “The Earth From Above” and his latest “6 Billion Others” project are amazing.

With an aging demographic and well established rights for elderly persons and those with mobility problems it’s hard to believe such a fight was so difficult. Paul DiSalvo had to wait a year and a half to have his condo to equipped with an accessibility ramp.

Why the condo was built without some form of accessibility in the first place? An entirely valid question. Too often simple design features like a wheelchair ramp are omitted or simply excluded from the plans. This often means expensive retrofitting for relatively inexpensive enhancements that add value. Unfortunately the dwellers of the condo will get tapped for the Halton Condominium Corporation’s damages/fees. Sad since the condo corporation’s board were not doing them any favours by fighting such an easy accommodation and for so long. Wouldn’t take a genius to come up with the cost benefit of accommodation (of a legal requirement) versus a year and a half of legal fees, damages and a ramp! Whoa!!!

At the end of the day whether or not one or many residents need a wheelchair ramp everyone benefits. Who knows whether a resident will eventually need one due to health or have a relative or visitor that would require it? Such a feature only enhances the value of the property and improves the quality of life of the people who use it. The more that employers, businesses, transit authorities and the general public are mindful of these issues the more we stand to gain.

The Conservatives have been trying to frantically upgrade Muskoka’s infrastructure via a $50 million G8 Legacy Infrastructure Fund founded in February, another $5 million in security upgrades for the North Bay airport and other funding initiatives under the Economic Action Plan. More fuel to critics fire on the current government’s priorities favouring Conservative jurisdictions. This of course is Tony Clement‘s home riding.

The trough of course looked deep enough for locals, close to $450 million worth of applications were chasing $50 million worth of the gravy. On the upside some short term construction jobs have been created. It is hoped that local tourism would get a boost as thousands of officials and media types migrate up to the area. It’s more likely that when the summit kicks off next summer that rich government officials will be enjoying cottage land while high paid security police block off potential protesters, terrorists and cottage goers. At least the local communities will benefit by having new facilities to host future events along with improved infrastructure.

Sad that by trying to snub Toronto and move both the G8 and G20 events to cottage country they will have to put at one here anyway. All lot of added expense for nothing. No question there will be immense pain with such a move for Torontonians. Traffic and security for these events, a nightmare! Perhaps the Government were trying to minimize the numbers of protesters close to the meetings by moving the summit away from an urban area? Well a private web-chat or conference call would have been preferred to the mountain of wasteful deficit spending for this circus ride.

I was talking to Mark Appleyard about his new site during the Flip Premiere. It’s finally live, Werd Life. The new site is a collaboration between Mark, Geoff Rowley and artist Todd Bratrud. With these strong skateboard personalities the site should be epic and live up to the definition.

Tentative agreements have been reached with striking inside and outside workers and the city Monday. While it has been a roller coaster ride at least both sides were not “forced” into a decision by an outside arbitrator that would have caused more whining. It took a long time but it will be nice to know this is all settled and everyone is back to work. (The details will not be disclosed until they are ratified by council so one can only speculate about the end result of hot issues like sick days).

Perhaps Torontonians can learn from this, much as we did during the big blackout. Will we produce less garbage and stop taking our parks for granted???!!!

The quest of the current government to divest or sell off Canadian assets stretches further than nuclear isotopes. Jim Balsillie, RIM’s co-chief executive officer stated,

“RIM is extremely disappointed that Nortel’s world leading technology, the development of which has been funded in part by Canadian taxpayers, seems destined to leave Canada and that Canada’s own Export Development Corporation is preparing to help by lending $300 million to another bidder. RIM remains extremely interested in acquiring Nortel assets through a Canadian ownership solution that would serve the dual purpose of keeping key wireless technologies in Canada and extending RIM’s leadership in the research, development and distribution of leading edge wireless solutions, but RIM has found itself blocked at every turn.”

Selling off Canadian innovation in our national interests to keep seems counter-intuitive, but not to the current helm at Industry Canada. Hate to think how they will handle a tourism portfolio when Jim Flaherty has mentioned he may sell off Via Rail.

Yes, the addition of The Marquee Tourism Events Program (MTEP) to Indusrty Minister’s (Tony Clement) plate comes after sexy isotopes and hopes to privatize nuclear medicine in Canada. The tourism portfolio inheritance comes with the turfing of junior cabinet minister Diane Ablonczy (likely over $400,000 of funding to the Toronto Pride Parade). Marry this off with further sell offs of Canadian patents and technology and the new “Conservatives” are taunting the opposition and adding fuel to the election fire.

Well a fight seems to be brewing at least here at Queen’s Park. Dwight Duncan, Ontario’s finance minister, feels that technology funded with Canadian taxpayer money shouldn’t easily be sold off to a foreign company.